I teach graduate level TV writing sometimes. Why? ‘Cause they ask me to. Who is they? Don’t worry about it. (Not to be coy. I just like to keep my fingers in all the jam jars.) (Gross. Pretend I didn’t say that out loud.) (I didn’t.)
Anyhoo. I was teaching this dude at this institution over zoom last Friday night–it was our last class ever, supposed to end at 8pm PST /11pm PST but we were in OT by like 20 minutes because I have time blindness and he is polite– and I started panicking that I hadn’t transferred every last particle of wisdom from my brain to his. So as a kind of pedagogical hail mary, I hurled five words at him that had been floating in my head regarding how characters manipulate one another to get what they want.
I forgot what they were. But the next day I hurled a bunch more at him over text, along with some new categories in table format. And he was like, “stop teaching me.”
No, he didn’t say that. He told me it was a good idea and I believed him because he’s very smart. And so I tweaked it a bit more and posted it to insta and people liked it, and then today I made a reel and a PDF and now I have to stop because I have an actual job.
Side note: Writing active characters is very very hard. Especially for us playwrights, whose currency is language and electrons. Sometimes we forget to write what changes and instead we write what happens. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it’s harder to sustain on a small screen than it is in a shared live space with everyone facing the same direction and nobody folding their laundry.
So! I made a chart. Here’s the PDF if you want an official version with exercises and stuff. And here is just the chart:
I think it works? Let me know if I’m wrong. Or just think it quietly to yourself and I’ll believe you like it because I’m sensitive and you’re a good person. ♥️